“Barbie” star Margot Robbie, who also serves as a producer on the film, said she initially set expectations high for how much money the movie could make.
Greta Gerwig’s highly-anticipated fantasy comedy film hit theaters on July 21. It follows Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie who leaves Barbie Land for the real world and makes some startling discoveries, per the synopsis.
“I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,” Robbie said during an interview with Collider.
“And then I gave a series of examples like, ‘dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg’ – pretty much naming anything that’s been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years,” the actress continued. “And I was like, ‘And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.’ And I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?”
The Warner Bros. film is expected to make between $95 million to $110 million, with some forecasters predicting it to rake in as much as $140 million. “Barbie” will premiere on the same day as Christopher Nolan’s historical drama “Oppenheimer,” which has led some moviegoers to dub the weekend “Barbenheimer.”
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Ryan Gosling, who plays one of the Kens in the movie, had glowing things to say about Gerwig. “Greta, she’s just such a brilliant person and such an inclusive person,” the actor said.
“She’s brilliant but incapable of being pretentious. I think what I admire so much about her work is that she doesn’t allow herself to create a divide between drama and comedy, and she encourages everyone around her to do the same,” Gosling said. “So you end up mining places that are in the in-between and it feels very specific to her, but also something that you can relate to because it’s more like life.”
Early reviews of the film say it has overtly feminist themes and is anti-patriarchy. An Entertainment Weekly reporter called it a “fierce, funny, and deeply feminist adventure.”
RELATED: Reviewers: ‘Barbie’ Movie Is A ‘Deeply Feminist Adventure’ That’s ‘Poking Fun At The Patriarchy’